In general, gasoline-fueled internal combustion engines initiate a spark during the compression stroke to ignite vaporized gasoline in the combustion chamber. At some operating conditions, some internal combustion engines may have reduced power output due to a requirement to retard spark timing during the compression stroke to avoid pre-ignition of the fuel leading to engine knock. To advance spark timing, fuel with a higher knock resistance, denoted by a higher Research Octane Number (RON), may be used. However, fuel with a higher RON is generally more expensive to purchase than fuel with a lower RON. The availability of the high RON fuel may also be limited by market conditions.
A fuel separation device, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,942, separates a flow of fuel into streams having a high RON component and a low RON component by passing the combined fuel stream by a fuel separation membrane. However, such fuel separation devices may be prone to degradation of performance of separation of the high RON portion and the low RON portion of the fuel and may be costly.
Accordingly, a need exists for cost effective partitioned ceramic monoliths with improved performance for use in the separation of fluid components.